


The eldest and the youngest

by redshadowalchemist



Series: The three sons of Hohenheim [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ed and Al are mentioned only, Gen, Homunculi, Human Transmutation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26179255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redshadowalchemist/pseuds/redshadowalchemist
Summary: So here they are the eldest and youngest, one several centuries old, one barely four days old. Poor copies of a son and a former lover of Hohenheim. Both pulled into the orbit of Hohenheim's old schemes by the love of a parent and the love of a child respectively.Or, Envy and Sloth have a little talk and Envy reflects on Edward and Alphonse.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric & Envy, Alphonse Elric & Envy, Edward Elric & Envy, Envy & Sloth (Fullmetal Alchemist)
Series: The three sons of Hohenheim [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891093
Kudos: 19





	The eldest and the youngest

**Author's Note:**

> My newest ramble for this series. I know how it ends but I'm a bit undecided about how many of these before it gets there.
> 
> Thank you to everyone still reading.

Envy was restlessly pacing up and down his "bedroom", he used the term "bedroom" loosely, although homunculi could eat, drink and sleep without any ill effects and could even enjoy doing so, it wasn't necessary, despite what Gluttony seemed to think. 

Envy's "bedroom" didn't actually have a bed in it despite the name. It was just a place to keep his belongings, of which he had few. There was a sofa which he sometimes slept on when he felt like sleeping, but he didn't feel like it often but few actual belongings, being a shapeshifter, he didn't really need clothing he could just manifest them from the unstable form that he usually held in his preferred shape. For the same reason he didn't have the same grooming products a human might own, no comb or hairbrush was needed when he could shift his hair into whichever style he desired, no deodrant as homunculi have no sweat glands. He did have several bookshelfs groaning with books, novels mostly Dante had a large library which he used occassionally to look up things he saw in her notes when she was away, but reading was no great interest of his. The true reason he had the novels, knowing no one else would show interest was to hide his notes between the pages, notes he had copied from Dante. Leads on the philosopher's stone.

Envy had chosen his room on the ground floor, being the eldest homunculus he had had the most choice, and he had made sure it was as far away from William's old room as possible. William's old room, where Envy had resided only for a few months many centuries ago before he completely abandoned the facade that they were the same person, had remained untouched since then. At least Envy assumed so, he'd never gone back inside since he'd dropped the facade. It was possible Dante had cleaned it out but he doubted it. She had loved her son, she was flawed, had been at least partially responsible for her own son's death and Envy hated her, but she had loved her son, even if she made horrific mistakes. Goodness was not a pre-requisite for love. Someone could be capable of great evil and still feel love.

Speaking of, what the boys had done. He hoped it was love, not arrogance. He hoped they hadn't known what would come from their transmutation, that they had thought it would work? He didn't know what Hohenheim wrote. And he couldn't know, without asking them...if they're still alive, a voice in his head reminded him.

Still, he couldn't get what he had seen at the Elric's house out of his head. And Sloth...she looked like Trisha Elric, but acted about as much like her as Envy acted like William Van Hohenheim. Trisha had been sweet and kind, but ordinary.

Sloth, she was fiercer than Trisha had ever been, or maybe Trisha simply never got the chance to be fierce. Either way she had not radiated the fire behind the eyes that Sloth did, in attempt to hide the fact that she was lost, Dante wasn't warm to the homunculous who bore the face of the woman her lover left her, though Dante was a practical woman and knew full well Sloth would be useful, especially if she hoped to get back at Hohenheim through his sons. Besides, Sloth was not Trisha Elric, she had no love for Hohenheim, he left the books lying around after all, the notes of how he created Envy, his sons had used the same notes to create Sloth. Sloth stayed, but Envy suspected it was because she had no where else to go, he stayed for information, Lust did too, Gluttony stayed for Lust and Pride stayed for power, but it was easier for him, being more often in the Fuhrer's mansion than Dante's. Sometimes he envied Greed his freedom and wondered what it would be like to just take off permanently, but the idea of the stone, of becoming a true human kept him here.

Tired of being cooped up in his room Envy decides to go frighten some random human, maybe he will even kill something, he used to do that a lot more, before he went to Resembool for the first time. He had never stopped, just found himself wanting to hurt humans less. Hohenheim's sons had got up his hopes that maybe he could be human too or at least close. Then they'd betrayed him just like their father.

As he climbs out of his window to avoid using the front door he sees Sloth sitting under a tree, her knees drawn up just under her chin.  
"Sloth" he acknowledges.

"You lied to me" Sloth says.

"No not you, you weren't even born then" Envy says quickly, cruelly even but it will be better for her in the long run to come to terms with this quickly, Lust never truly came to terms with her existence either...the fact Envy himself, as the oldest hadn't completely come to terms with his own existence either was a fact he was ignoring. He sits down on the grass beside the younger homunculus. 

"You lied to HER then" she snapped back.

"Only partially, William Van Hohenheim existed...he just died 350 years ago. I was made in his image but I'm not him, no more than you are Trisha Elric. It was convenient lie, to explain my prescence."

“You know my boys then" she stated.

“They are not your boys.” He snapped.

“I remember then, giving birth to them, raising them. I'm not her but I remember...”

“They are not your memories.”

“I remember you too, turning up at the house that day” she ignored him continuing “what did you really want?”

“Hohenheim” he answered “I went to kill Hohenheim.”

“But isn't he your father? Sort of."

"You've been talking to Dante" Envy said.

"She told me everything. So Edward and Alphonse are still your brothers.”

“They are not my brothers” he snapped, “but they are his sons, look at what they did to you don't you hate them? Everyone else hates the person who created them, even Pride hates Dante though he is the one most loyal to her.”

“They are my sons how can I hate them?” she says so matter of factly despite her earlier confusion. Envy wonders if that is what makes the difference, a mother's love is supposed to be unconditional and Trisha Elric had loved her sons, Sloth could have acquired that via memories, though Envy had been based on a good and loving young man and acquired almost none of that himself, the soft spot for William's bastard brothers having been the exception and look how that turned out.

"Why did you stay?" Sloth asks him suddenly breaking him out of his thoughts.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you went to kill Hohenheim and didn't find him, you did find his sons though. You didn't leave, or even try to hurt the boys for revenge you visited them, often, why?"

"I don't really know, they were...different. I never had brothers, even William never had brothers, the next oldest homunculus after me is Greed, who you will likely never meet, no one knows where he is, Green is about 280 years younger than me. I was alone for a long time and Ed and Al, they didn't understand what I was but they just accepted me. So I kept coming back, and I worried for them...with their blood and their brilliant minds. It seems I was right" he finishes bitterly.

“Please Envy, human transmutation is dangerous. I can't see them, I'm not the mother they wanted back and Dante has me watched like a hawk, but please I need to know if they are alive at least.” Sloth begged.

Envy knows full well that Edward and Alphonse might both be dead. In fact it is the most statistically likely outcome of what happened. Few alchemists who attempt human transmutation survive. He feels a slight pang before remdinging himself they are NOT his brothers they aren't.

"I'm not human, they aren't my family, why should I care?"

"You want to care" Sloth said "you can on some level but not like a human could. You want to though. I do too. It's why I can't see them, I won't be able to be Trisha, not long term. It is crueller for me to go and then not be her, especially if they were injured to make me. They were hurt...there was so much blood...I don't know if they survived it, and they didn't even get what they wanted. I wish I could be her but..."

"You aren't" Envy cuts in but less coldly "you don't want to be her, you want to be human and trying to be her seems slightly more achievable than just becoming human."

"You..." Sloth starts "you feel that way too?"

He can't trust her, not yet, even if she agrees with him she's so new she could inadvertantly cause problems.

"It's not possible" he possibly lies, Envy has never found and answer, it may mean there isn't one or it may simply mean he hasn't found it yet. "Accept your life as it is Sloth, you will learn to appreciate it." Another half lie, it gets easier but appreciation for his half life is never something Envy has achieved.

They fall into a pensive silence for a while. So here they are the eldest and youngest, one several centuries old, one barely four days old. Poor copies of a son and a former lover of Hohenheim. Both pulled into the orbit of Hohenheim's old schemes by the love of a parent and the love of a child respectively.

Despite his internal insistence that they are not his brother's he needs know one way or another what had happened. They weren't completely like the bastard Hohenheim, they were young children. He wondered if they had lived and if they had lived, what sort of state were they in. They wouldn't be in one piece, they may be blind, deaf, dumb or some combination of the three. They may be missing internal organs assuming they had lost nothing so vital as the heart or brain they might survive but in poor health, maybe in constant pain. He just didn't know. The cold, cruel part that exists inside him, that gives him his name hoped Ed had suffered more than Al, he was certain Ed had been leading their folly, that Al would never have thought of it without his elder brother.

In Alphonse he saw what he might have been, what William was. His gentleness, the easy smile and even temper. It wasn't Alphonse's fault of course but it sometimes made it hurt to look at him.

In Edward he saw the brilliance and fire and arrogance of their father but with Ed's own determination and there was more kindness in him than in Hohenheim but clearly more arrogance too, at least Hohenheim had waited until he was an adult to break the taboo.

His feelings for the boys were complicated, he had this hatred for their existence because looking at them hurt sometimes, but he had also loved them, or as close to love as Envy was capable of feeling. 

With a noise that would have been a reluctant sigh if he was capable of breathing. Envy stood up again. It looked like he was going back to Resembool.


End file.
